1937 or Showa 12 Japanese Map or Plan of Shanghai, China

Description: This is an uncommon map of Shanghai, China, dating to 1937 or Showa 12. Printed by the Japanese, the map covers all of Shanghai including the greater metropolitan area and the downtown Bund region as well as the course of the Huangpu River. This map was issued after the second Sino-Japanese war and the Battle of Shanghai of 1937, a battle between China and the Empire of Japan which resulted in Japanese occupation of Shanghai. The map includes two inset maps, one in the upper left and the other in the lower right quadrant. All text is in Japanese.

Date:
1937 (undated)

Cartographer:
Japanese cartography appears as early as the 1600s. Japanese maps are known for their exceptional beauty and high quality of workmanship. Early Japanese cartography has its own very distinctive projection and layout system. Japanese maps made prior to the appearance of Commodore Perry and the opening of Japan in the mid to late 1850s often have no firm directional orientation, incorporate views into the map proper, and tend to be hand colored woodblock prints. This era, from the 1600s to the c. 1855, which roughly coincides with the Tokugawa or Edo Period (1603-1886), some consider the Golden Age of Japanese Cartography. Most maps from this period, which followed isolationist ideology, predictably focus on Japan. The greatest cartographer of the period, whose work redefined all subsequent cartography, was Ino Tadataka (1745 -1818). Ino's maps of Japan were so detailed that, when the European cartographers arrived they had no need, even with their far more sophisticated survey equipment, to remap the region. Later Japanese maps, produced in the late Edo and throughout the Meiji period, draw heavily upon western maps as models in both their content and overall cartographic style. While many of these later maps maintain elements of traditional Japanese cartography such as the use of rice paper, woodblock printing, and delicate hand color, they also incorporate western directional orientation, projection systems, and structural norms. Click here for a list of Japanese maps.